Olymic star jumps

Last updated at 10:59 21 November 2005

Over jumps Leslie Law was good enough to win Britain's first Olympic equestrian three-day-event gold medal for 32 years. Now the skilled rider is facing the biggest hurdle of his life - and is planning to quit Britain.

Law, 40, is off to America next month, I can reveal, to start a new life, taking with him his beloved horse Shear L'Eau which won him the gold at Athens... but leaving behind his longtime

girlfriend and fiancee, fellow equestrian Trina Lightwood.

For just 15 months after Law returned home from the Olympics, I discover his eight-year relationship with Trina has collapsed and the couple have ended their engagement because Law

has fallen for another attractive young rider.

Curiously, yesterday, he and Trina were to be found still sharing the same home, their equestrian training centre, Green Street Farm, near Upton upon Severn, Worcestershire, which they bought just 18 months ago.

"We are trying to sort out what is going to happen to the stables in a sensible and amicable fashion. We don't know whether we will rent or sell it, but the important thing is to behave like grown-ups," says Law, who was previously

married to show-jumper Harriet Harrison, granddaughter of the late Sir Rex Harrison.

Ironically, it was Harriet who brought Law and Trina together because Harriet employed Trina as her stable assistant.

Unlike Law's attempts to break up with Trina amicably, his marriage to Harriet ended somewhat bitterly, with her refusing at one stage to sign the divorce decree absolute because Law, she claimed, had not paid her a five-figure sum owed to her.

Law, who left Greece thinking he'd won a silver medal but was upgraded to gold after the German competitor Bettina Hoy was disqualified, was subsequently awarded an MBE for his success.

However, he insists that his moving to Ocala, Florida, will not prevent his competing for Britain in the 2008 Olympics.

He refuses to name the new woman in his life, but says: "She's also a rider, she's not American and I am not moving there just because of her. It's something I've been thinking of

for a while."

Reminiscing about his late Cabinet colleague Mo Mowlam at last night's splendid memorial tribute at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, former Heritage Secretary Chris Smith recalled

how she mastered the sign language gesture for

bulls***t.

"She would use it often in parliamentary meetings," said Smith. "She would catch my eye and practise it across the table."

Whisky galore! Ben bottles it

After surviving for a year in the outer Hebrides for the BBC series Castaway, dashing TV presenter

Ben Fogle knew just what to pack as he embarks on a 2,500-mile race across the Atlantic - whisky.

Unfortunately Ben's teammate, double Olympic rowing champion James Cracknell, was not so

convinced.

"James thought that the bottles would be too

heavy," says Ben, who describes his own rowing skills as "rubbish". The dispute was resolved by Glenlivet Whisky, who produced some of their Scottish malt in two plastic bottles - light enough for Ben, 32, and James, 33, to take with them when they set off next Sunday on the Woodvale Atlantic race from the Canary Islands to the West Indies.

"When we've finished the whisky, I'm going to write letters and messages and put them in the

bottles and address them to my girlfriend Marina," says Bryanston-educated Ben, who

during the race will be separated from his longterm love, children's party organiser Marina

Pincher, 91, is giving a lecture on his specialist subject to raise money to buy cushions for the pews at his local church, so that the elderly congregation don't have to listen to sermons while sitting on hard seats. Sprightly Pincher, who last year landed a 20lb trout from the Kennet - the biggest trout ever caught in a British river - and his wife Constance hope to raise £3,500 to buy cushions for all 30 pews at St Mary's in Kintbury, near Newbury, in Berks.

"When we depart this life we want to leave the villagers with satisfied backsides," Pincher tells me.

I May, but then I May not

Might Prince Edward be the first member of the Royal Family to attend a gay wedding? The tantalising question arises because the father of one of Edward's old girlfriends is said to be

planning a civil partnership ceremony with his longstanding boyfriend.

The Prince dated multi-millionaire David May's

athletic daughter Georgia after coming down from

Cambridge in 1986.

They were said to be "potty" about each other and

Georgia was invited to spend New Year with the royals at Sandringham.

But the romance fizzled out just as Georgia's boatbuilder father was being revealed to

be sharing his life with a young man 18 years his junior.

Now, nearly two decades later, flamboyant May -

nicknamed Daisy ever since he used a motif of the flower on a spinnaker - is said by friends to be planning to make his relationship with accountant Nick Amor permanent.

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu tells me he has been invited to attend the ritual.

"They've been friends of mine for years," he says. "They're having a ceremony some time between now and Christmas and David has asked me to be a witness, along with some other people."

However, May is coy about the forthcoming nuptials. "I was just teasing Lord Montagu," he says.

PS He has always been an indispensable figure whose influence has far outweighed his rank. But surely Michael Fawcett must be the first of Prince Charles's domestic servants to appear in Hansard.

In the Commons, Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay asked if the valet turned party planner had purchased the gifts the Prince gave President George W. Bush and his wife Laura (a book on Churchill for him and a silver box for her) during his US tour earlier this month.

According to officials, he did not. But

Mackinlay, a forensic parliamentary operator, is not satisfied. "I am told that Fawcett has a contract to purchase gifts for the Prince," he tells me. "I will continue to probe."